Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of people recorded by HMRC as earning below the Personal Allowance for taxable income who contributed to a workplace pension using ‘net pay’ tax relief in all tax years since 2017; and of this number, how many were (1) women, and (2) men.

HMRC estimates that 1.5m individuals earning below the personal allowance in 2017-18 made workplace pension contributions via Real Time Information (RTI) using net pay arrangements. Around 75% of these individuals are estimated to be female and 25% are estimated to be male.

The personal allowance in 2017-18 was £11,500.

HMRC’s Survey of Personal Income (SPI) and administrative data was used to produce the estimates. The 2017-18 SPI data (published in March 2020) is the latest year available. The SPI is updated annually.

As indicated in HMRC’s statistics announcement, the 2018-19 Personal Incomes Statistics (Distributional analysis) is expected to be published on 31 March 2021 and the Personal Incomes Statistics (Regional analysis) is expected to be published on 28 April 2021.